Blackwell was born in Syracuse, South Carolina, as one of sixteen children of Payton and Elizabeth Blackwell. Part Cherokee, he grew up and spent most of his life in Indianapolis, Indiana. Blackwell was given the nickname, "Scrapper", by his grandmother, due to his fiery nature. His father played the fiddle, but Blackwell was a self-taught guitarist, building his first guitar out of cigar boxes, wood and wire. He also learned the piano, occasionally playing professionally. By his teens, Blackwell was a part-time musician, traveling as far as Chicago. Known for being withdrawn and hard to work with, Blackwell established a rapport with pianist Leroy Carr, whom he met in Indianapolis in the mid-1920s, creating a productive working relationship. Carr convinced Blackwell to record with him for the Vocalion label in 1928; the result was "How Long, How Long Blues", the biggest blues hit of that year.
Blackwell also made solo recordings for Vocalion, including "Kokomo Blues" which was transformed into "Old Kokomo Blues" by Kokomo Arnold before being redone as "Sweet Home Chicago" by Robert Johnson. Blackwell and Carr toured throughout the American Midwest and South between 1928 and 1935 as stars of the blues scene, recording over 100 sides. "Prison Bound Blues" (1928), "Mean Mistreater Mama" (1934), and "Blues Before Sunrise" (1934) were popular tracks.Blackwell made several solo excursions; a 1931 visit to Richmond, Indiana to record at Gennett studios is notable. Blackwell, dissatisfied with the lack of credit given his contributions with Carr, was remedied by Vocalion's Mayo Williams after his 1931 breakaway. In all future recordings, Blackwell received equal credit with Carr in terms of recording contracts and songwriting credits. Blackwell's last recording session with Carr was in February 1935 for the Bluebird label. The recording session ended bitterly, as both musicians left the studio mid-session and on bad terms, stemming from payment disputes. Two months later Blackwell received a phone call informing him of Carr's death due to heavy drinking and nephritis. Blackwell soon recorded a tribute to his musical partner of seven years ("My Old Pal Blues") before retiring from the music industry.
Blackwell returned to music in the late 1950s and was first recorded in June 1958 by Colin C. Pomroy (those recordings were released as late as 1967 on the Collector label). Soon afterwards he was recorded by Duncan P. Schiedt for Doug Dobell's 77 Records.
Scrapper Blackwell was then recorded in 1961, in Indianapolis, by a young Art Rosenbaum for the Prestige/Bluesville Records label. The story is recounted by Rosenbaum as starting three years before the recordings were made. While still growing up in his hometown of Indianapolis, an African American woman that Rosenbaum knew said he "had to meet a man that she knew, who played guitar, played blues and christian songs, they'll make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck." Rosenbaum goes into more details of meeting Blackwell; "I met the gentleman across the street from the Methodist hospital in Indianapolis". Scrapper's friend said, "well he hasn't got a guitar", so Art said "well I got a guitar." Scrapper than said that he needed some 'bird food', with Rosenbaum being confused as to what he was referring to, Scrapper continued, "you gotta get some bird food for the bird, before the bird sings... beer!" Rosenbaum said, "I'm too young!" Scrapper and his friend continued, "we'll buy the beer, you just give us some money." Art concludes the meeting, "So we did, and he started playing these beautiful blues. I didn't realize he was Scrapper Blackwell til I mentioned his name to a blues collecting friend." To which then the friend exclaimed, "you met Scrapper Blackwell!?"He was ready to resume his blues career when he was shot and killed during a mugging in an Indianapolis alley. He was 59 years old. Although the crime remains unsolved, police arrested his neighbour at the time for the murder. Blackwell is buried in New Crown Cemetery, Indianapolis.
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The blues posts have been outstanding and have been honing in on the artists that I like best. A million thanks. However, I hope you will understand that, as of two days ago, I am the sole person in my home who is permitted to access this blog as long as the Chitlin' Chat comments are visible. After reading 'The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa' based on your recommendation, I persuaded my wife and daughters that there were many like-minded zealots like me who could not have enough music in their homes and needed to accumulate more. So as the piles and shelves of burned and bought compact discs have become “overpopulated”, I enjoyed a reprieve from my wife's and two daughters' lamentations that I have too much music, it is taking up too much room, and I need to part with some of it so our home becomes inhabitable again. Mind you, I don't have a stereo needle but I keep all of my vinyl collection if only to gaze fondly at it and lull myself into a nostalgic stupor remembering fondly the first five hundred times I played each album, as well as what substance or liquid was in my system at the time and with whom I was when I listened to it.
Two years ago I did magnanimously acquiesce to my wife getting rid of the eight-track tape player and my eight-track tapes, which had long ago been replaced by compact discs, but I held firm and asserted that this blog and Eisenberg's book were clear proof that I was not alone in my mania and others' families were making accommodations for vast music collections. Moreover, I assured my wife that when our daughters moved out in the coming years I would use their bedrooms for my music and book 'library'. The thought of no longer having to circumnavigate the piles of books in the bedroom to reach the bed or closets or walk between the boxes of stored compact discs in the living room and hallway pleased her. In other words, I thought I was safe from further harassment about the several thousand compact discs. Mind you, I have three multi-terrabyte hard-drives for music and two smaller contingency ones if I need them but you just can't hold an mp3 in your hand and read about the artists and at my age straining to read the small print on compact disc covers is taxing enough.
So what provoked the ban? My British comrade GG (shades of Maurice Chevalier) had to post an inquiry about selling vinyl; that is, parting with his music for cash. Even worse, le Roi and several others engage in the same nefarious abandonment of their musical children for money. Aghast and fearful of a family assault on my treasure, I have acted to ensure that only I can look at this blog until some measure of sanity returns via hoarders like me contributing comments to express how dearly they hold their musical treasure.
I've not suffered the devastation of a flood because of hurricane-battered levies like le Roi or house fires like Lazz and David Wolfe-Sonnc but when I left my home state, my father sold the family home, remarried, and stored all of our childhood memorabilia, many of my books, and priceless photo albums in a location he would shortly no longer remember because of Altzheimers. A location that only he knew and for which he had no documents. that might provide the location. My siblings and I have no idea where any of the items are. Sadly, the most valuable item for me, a photo album I gave him of irreplaceable photos of the first generation in this country and their photos of friends and life in Boston in the early 1900s, is missing. We have no hope of finding any of the items and, to add insult to injury, the home he and my mother lived in until her death was razed because a subsequent resident began a construction project to expand the home, ran out of funds, and the town condemned it. The buyer has replaced the home with some brick and glass monstrosity that looks out of place in the neighborhood and remains unfinished several years after he began building it. So like Blind Faith, I can't find my way home when I travel to my home state to visit friends. My reaction has been to live sparsely but for books and music on vinyl and compact discs I have accumulated over the past forty odd years (if you have made it this far, you no doubt agree they must have been odd). I even buy two of any book I really enjoy so I can have a read copy and a pristine copy to be read in my twilight years. So there you have it; this discussion about parting with music in any format is dangerous territory and will encourage my wife and daughters to resume their harassment unless I hold firm to the ban.
It;'s a shame really. They could have learned so much about the music I impose on them if they read the blog and would no longer be subject to my rambling monologues about Geater Davis, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Marva Wright, Mavis Staples, Percy Mayfield, Esquerita, Otis Clay,or sundry others. But for now I have to hold firm. I have read about the tragedy the Plains Indians experienced from the slaughter of buffalo or, if you will, bison and know that I could suffer a significantly less cruel, although clearly traumatic, fate if my musical buffaloes disappeared. As it is now, when the Mrs. decides to organize, she confounds my organized chaos and makes it difficult to locate music when I want to listen to it or simply want to gaze fondly at it.
To think, I have refrained from rambling of late under the assumption that brevity is the wit of soul. No matter, my personal Crimea, my music collection, must remain united with me and I look forward to the time when I will no longer read messages about selling music. The horror, the horror.....
Of course, there's the possibility that two bedrooms won't be enough and, if not, I'll have to consider the inconvenience of a queen bed and bureaus in the bedroom when the space could be better utilized for more books and music. No doubt, I'll miss sleeping next to my wife after thirty three years, but I'm willing to let her visit from time to time as long as she no longer refers to my collections as 'clutter'. After all, the eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not denounce as clutter thy neighbor's or spouse's collections."
I believe we have already moved past said conversation and it has moved out of sight on the chat roll and will soon be gone entirely my friend
Thanks, le Roi, the wife and children can be released from their sealed room and have free access to the computer again. Free, if one doesn't consider the barriers of stacks of compact discs that make the going treacherous. And I can go back to contemplating what one thousand compact discs I might take with me if I were forced to live on Canada's Ellesmere Island for a decade or so. I only have one Inuit music compilation so it may be tough going for the island's permanent residents but I suspect they'll adjust to the soul collection with relative ease. Marva, Mavis, Otis, and Aretha echoing off the cliffs and passing ice floes is something to contemplate.
Even being a piano player I feel the necessity to nourish myself with such guitar and voice from the past, a past that makes the future meaningful. Thank you KingCake I do highly appreciate your work, or perhaps I should use the term mission. Too bombastic or overly romantic ? I do not think so.
Thank you
I understand that this is Blackwell without Carr and i really look forward to hear him solo, big thanks!
Looking forward to hearing this. Thanks KC.
An LP friend for nearly 40 years. Many thanks.
Ray Pratt, Bozeman, MT
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